Heinerle: The Peasant Artist.
by Emil Frommel.
Volume 3, 1892/93, pgs. 938-947
Translated from the German by K. W. Bent. (With permission.)
BOOK IV.--YEARS OF TRAVEL.
Chapter VI. Master Years.
It was in the year 18--, in June. The woods were clothed in the most beautiful green, the pines on the Harz gave forth a delicious scent, the birds were singing joyously, and the world over in the Black Forest was as fresh and beautiful as if it had only just come into existence. There, in the early morning, a young man in a large straw hat was walking down into the Grindbach Valley, carrying his paint-box on his shoulder and his easel and umbrella in his hand.
Before him lay the world in the sunlight, and all that he saw in it went through the windows of his eyes into his heart, and impressed a picture there as accurately as on a photographer's plate through the glass. He stood above Grindbachthal, there at the Crucifix, where once Heiner had sat and looked up at the Cross and away into the distance. His eyes quickly took in the whole subject, and the camp-stool was set down, the paint-box opened, the umbrella spread over the easel, which was stuck deep into the earth, and the scene was quickly sketched in with the pencil. Colour after colour was used; the painter hastened to catch the sunshine and light, and was so deeply engrossed in his work, that he heard and saw nothing. So he did not notice that a tall man, with silvered hair, stood behind him, and looked over his shoulder.
If the painter could have seen the man, who looked so eagerly at him, he would have noticed that a sad smile played across his face, and that tears stood in his eyes. But the painter noticed nothing until he had finished his sketch, and looked about him. He was almost startled when he saw him, for there was no one else to be seen far and wide. But the man in the long black coat and the long white stockings offered him his hand, and his voice, in bidding him "Good morning," had such a true-hearted, pleasant ring, that the painter was reassured.
"You have done that well, Herr Painter, and the colours are well mixed, and you are industrious," said the man.
"You understand something of the craft, too," said the young painter, laughing.
"Not much," replied the stranger, "but enough to know whether a thing is worth anything or is spoilt."
Between the two a lively conversation sprang up, which ended in the stranger slinging on the painter's paint-box, taking down the umbrella, and conducting the painter down the stony path with his easel.
From a house in the distance, standing alone, and the first to be descried, the cheerful singing of men's voices came towards them. The manner was beautiful and peculiar, and the painter was astonished to hear such singing.
"Who is singing there, then?" he asked.
"Those are my workmen," replied the stranger.
The painter looked at him, and then entered the house with him, which is not unknown to the reader. For it looked exactly like the godfather's house. The pond is still there, and the wheel still turns, and the bees still fly about as formerly, when Heiner was there. Only one thing is different; on the balcony sit two little girls, with long golden plaits, and play with the marigolds, plucking out the petals; and a sturdy, chubby-cheeked boy blows a dandelion clock, while from the window a young woman of cheerful appearance watches the children.
In the house itself everything is in the same place as formerly--the old press, and the weather glasses, together with the bird-cages. Only on the wall there hangs a large half-length likeness of an old man. In his venerable face there is a quiet peace, and from his eyes something from above radiates. The snow-white hair is tied back with a silken band, and under the picture are the lines:
"Though it was no angel whom thou didst send
When thou didst see me wandering,
Yet in my course
He rendered me an angel's service."
The picture was well drawn in chalks, and he who had done it had drawn it with love, that, one saw in the picture. And the reader knows the picture, too.
The painter stood before it, and looked for a long time at it, and asked, "Who did that?"
"That you shall hear later. Come first and refresh yourself. You have earned your bread early to-day. Annie! Call the mother, and set something before the gentleman."
The young wife came, embraced her husband, greeted the painter politely, and placed something for him to eat.
Soon the dear old mother came in, leaning upon her stick, and curtseyed to the painter, according to a time-honoured custom in the Black Forest. "That is my mother. Herr Painter; she is already in her eighties." The young painter got up from his seat, went towards her, gave her his hand, and greeted her respectfully, which pleased the son immensely, for he thought, "He has also learnt the proverb, 'before grey hairs you should stand, and honour old age.'"
"You also have a mother," said he to the painter.
"Yes, out there in the churchyard," said the artist, sorrowfully.
"At least you had her with you for some time, and it seems to me you have not yet forgotten her. That is worth a great deal in the world."
The old woman nodded in a friendly manner, and cast a thankful look at her son.
"You are a remarkable man," said the painter, "and I can't discover what you are. You are not peasant, that I can see; you have pictures and books. Are you a weather prophet, that you have so many glasses here, or a bird trainer, or indeed a doctor?"
"All that, if you will, Herr Painter," said the man, laughing. "Come along with me now, then you will see what I am."
The painter descended the narrow winding stairs. They reached the door where "No Admittance" stood. The man touched a spring, and they entered a light, roomy workshop.
"Good morning, master!" called out ten men's voices in chorus. Each wanted to shake hands with him. "You have stayed a long time," said the eldest workman, "and the time has passed slowly to us."
"I could not come earlier, but the walk has had its recompense, as you will see," replied the master.
The painter looked round him. It was a stirring life in that workshop, and he could only be astonished at it. Some were busy about watches, taking them to pieces, others were putting new ones together. The master inspected them all, and helped the young learners, spoke quietly with the older ones, as if over an important secret.
"Now come over here to the second battalion," said the master; and they entered a still lighter room with large windows. Sitting at tables were young and old, who were drawing and painting.
"That is my Genius Corps," he said, laughing; "they meddle with your handicraft."
The painter saw that these were plans for the construction of new watches; others were painting flowers, and busy about little genre pictures and landscapes.
"Would you like to see what you have painted this morning? It is not as good as yours, as you will see."
The master opened a press, and took out a complete watch, the cover of which was painted. Yes, there stood the Crucifix, and under it a man, a woman, and a little boy, who were looking up to the mountains. And underneath the verse:
"What though the world to pieces goes."
"An artist painted that," said the painter, astonished.
"At least, one who is only half a one," replied the master; "they are not all artists who occupy themselves with oils and colours. But I will show you some other pictures if you like." And the master drew out some more watches painted in a similarly fine way. On one was a woodcutter, who was uprooting a tree. Several deep cuts were already in the tree, and below it was a Latin couplet: "Omnes vulnerant, Ultima caedit." "They all wound, but the last blow kills."
"See, Herr Painter, that is Death, the Woodcutter, who strikes at the living tree, and each stroke wounds it, and the last one fells the tree. That is an earnest little watch. But you shall see my favourite."
It was quite a large wall-clock. The picture showed a peasant's house, in one wing of which a light burnt, behind which stood a youthful figure. Up above appeared the face of an old woman, who was opening the shutter. She was waving her hand. The whole was suffused with moonlight, and beautifully and finely painted.
"If I mistake not," said the painter, "that is the old lady, your mother, here in the picture, is it not so?"
"Yes, yes, indeed; that is why I am so fond of it."
"But listen," said the painter, "you have spent much art upon that, which I almost regret."
"Do you not think that art may be used as a handmaid to the artificer's work? Clocks were formerly very badly decorated. Just look at the roses on that old clock over there. It is not so that God makes his roses grow. Why should not man do his best? You may have read poor songs and verses written underneath which are worth as little as the paintings on the clock. A clock is often the only piece of furniture in a peasant's house to which one can apply art. There he should see and read what is good. Don't you think so? Now, look once more at the clock: it has an alarum; see, I will set it." The master set it, the hands pointed to the hour, the alarum rattled and a little door opened, out of which came a bullfinch, who plumed himself, threw his head back, and piped in a masterly manner the song, "Awake my heart and sing"; right through six verses.
"Is not that a cheerful alarum, Herr Painter, and better than if he sang a rubbishy song to the peasants?"
"Yes, that is a fine clock," said the artist. "How is it that the case is so beautifully carved, and looks exactly like a birdcage? Did you plan and design it all?"
"Yes, indeed," said the master modestly; "it is well enough, so far as it goes."
"But you should have been an artist, master. One has been lost in you."
"Sir Painter, please look once more at the motto over the door."
The painter read:
"Thoroughly unhappy is the man
Who leaves off doing what he can
And attempts what he does not understand--
No wonder if he fails utterly."
"Do you understand it? You might read the other as well:
"'Self-counsel is deceitful,
Worldly counsel is wild,
God's counsel is good.'
That is my answer. And he who inscribed that knew what he was writing about."
"You are an enigma to me, master, with your clocks, and your art, and your mottoes."
"Maybe," replied the master, "Now come a little further."
They went downstairs to the wheel-work. There at the forge stood the sooty workmen, singing in the firelight whilst the hammers were swinging. "Stop a minute, lads," said the master; "it may be too loud for the gentleman. This is my artillery, who do their part towards the business." And now he showed him the cylinders and the wheel-work for the musical clocks. The painter went on shaking his head.
"I shall be so pleased if you will remain to dinner. You can draw here in the garden if you like, or over yonder on the hill, there are beautiful views. I must now go to work, so good-bye for the present."
The painter went out into the garden, sat himself under the copper beech, and drew the master's house. But he did not get on so quickly as with his sketch of the Crucifix up above, for all kinds of thoughts were passing through his head. The master had let fall so many words which gave the painter something to think about. The midday bell rang from the belfry on the roof of the house. The workrooms were thrown open, and all the workmen stood at the draw-well, over which the great lime-tree bowed, and the buckets went up and down until the faces and hands of the whole band were quite clean. In dark jerkins and clean shirts they came to table. The master was at the head of it with the mistress and the old mother, and said grace, whereupon all the men sang a verse arranged in four parts, and then began the clatter of knives and forks. The painter looked on at the doings good-humouredly, and heard how here poor orphans and also rich people's children, natives and foreigners, came to learn in order to practise the art acquired there abroad; and how the master's name was celebrated far and wide.
After dinner one of the workmen played upon a good-sized organ which stood in the hall; they sang again, and then the people went to the garden and pond until the bell called them again to work. The painter sat on, still talking with the master and the mistress and the old mother. And his heart and the master's went out to each other, as if kindled by the light of other days.
"Stay the night, Herr Painter, you won't repent it; the country is beautiful, and there is still a great deal left for you to paint here," said the master.
The painter accepted, and went out again into the open air. At sunset the master came, and again looked over his shoulder, and sat down by him. "Herr Painter, you are an industrious and clever man, that I can say for you. You are still young; keep steady, and you will achieve something."
The painter related how he had taken to art, and his words were full of fire and high purpose. And the master smiled quietly to himself. The painter had finished. The master was silent for awhile: one could see that he was struggling with himself whether he should be silent or speak. At last he broke the silence and said: "You are not sent here for nothing, and if I can be of any use to you, listen to me."
Chapter VII. Conclusion.
The master began, and the gentle reader knows where, namely, the first chapter of our story (for he has already guessed who the master was), and told him all about the Wood of Lindelbronn, and of the godfather, to whom the house belonged, and of his art studies in the town, and of his wanderings to Italy, so far the reader knows.
"Then I came back here over the Alps; how, I hardly know myself, but in great want and misery. In many a town I took again to my trade, until at last I came back to Lindelbronn Wood. And as I came my heart failed me, for I did not know whether my mother still lived. And it was as still as death in the village, and the watchman had sounded 'Just one o'clock!' and looked long at me, as I struck into the path leading into the village. And yet there was the little room up above prepared as if I had been expected. The bed was made, and the nosegay stood upon the table as always, and the light with the flint and steel, and the tinder with the lucifer match. And I struck a light in the room. And it was not long before the watchman blew on his horn three times underneath, and the shutter was thrown back, and I heard the old voice: 'Good-night, Heinerle--Heinerle, good-night!' Yes, so had the mother arranged it with her kinsman, the watchman. When there was a light up above in the room, then he was to blow three times on his horn. And year in, year out, as long as I was away, had he looked out to see if there was no light there, and at last the light appeared. That I went across to her, and that my tears overflowed, you will believe, and that I got no rest until she had said to me: 'Heinerle, I forgive you, it shall all be forgotten! God be praised!'
"Sleep did not visit her eyes or mine till I had told her all that had happened to me. Then she said: 'Heinerle, you and I were in need of all this--your heart and mine have aimed at high things, and now we are both humbled. The godfather was right.'
"At these words I felt a stab at my heart, and I asked, 'Is godfather still alive?' But mother was silent and wept. 'Is godfather dead, mother?' I asked, in my anguish; and she nodded her head. It was already more than a year since he had been buried. He passed quietly away in his sleep, and no one knew it. It was not until his dog came running through the place, looking very miserable, that they found the godfather lying in his lofty bed with folded hands. You have seen his picture. I have drawn it from remembrance, and it is like. But he had not forgotten me. In his will there was much about me--how he had forgiven me, and had not lost hope that I would come home again. 'He will know, when he sees the best pictures, that he is no artist, and the world will tell him what he would not have believed from me; but God will bring him back into the right way, and as he did not know his God in the Pillar of Cloud during the day of good fortune and sunshine, he will recognise Him in the fiery column of the night of affliction.'
"Finally, he added that if I came home in ten years, and decided of my own free will to be that which God intended for me, and to practise my art in a humble way, thereby serving God and man, then his whole property, including house, garden, and all belonging to them, should be mine. But if I did not come home, then should his house be used as workshops, in which poor orphans should learn watchmaking, to practise it in the Black Forest, while the mother, as long as she lived, should have the usufruct [use of the property, but not ownership].
"So I came over here, Herr Painter, and have taken a wife, who is of the same mind as I am, and who cherishes my old mother as if she were a child. And God has blessed me above measure. And from far and near the people come, and I can't make goods enough to supply the demand. Even to South Russia my watches and playthings go. And in remembrance of the godfather, I always have six orphan children from the Forest that they may learn what will be useful to them. But what I learnt and saw out in the world, and at the master's in the town (God rest his soul!), I use it all as you have seen, and can yet be an artist, though I am, and remain, only a watchmaker. Now you know all. The sun is setting, and it is getting fresh, you might get cold, stay the night here."
The painter felt he must always respect the master, and it would not have taken much to have induced him to remain with him. But the master said: "No, that is in God's hands, who gave you such good gifts. You were born to be an artist, and I would have made myself one, which is the difference. But keep your aim high, and serve the Creator, not the creature, and then you will be a true artist. Then you need not travel the road on which I ran with wounded heart and feet."
In thoughtful meditation they both went down the hill. The workmen were singing merrily in the lamplight. The young wife came to meet her husband with the children clinging to her hand, and one led the old mother. "There comes my best treasure, my jewel, Herr Painter;" and with another look he gazed at his mother, and kissed the hand of the old peasant woman. After supper the master took the painter into yet another little room. It was the godfather's chamber. The golden candlesticks, the little organ, all stood undisturbed within.
"That is the room I love best in the house," said the master. "There the godfather saved me by his prayers from ruin. And when the desire for fame lures me on, and I am tempted to wish I were an artist, then I come here, and regain my content. This morning when I saw you, the longing began to seethe in me again; that's why I left you. There is one thing in here, which sets me perfectly at rest, when the candles, the organ, the praying-stool, and the godfather's Bible cannot do it. I will show it to you." The master drew a silk curtain aside from a picture, which hung on the wall. The reader knows it--it was the Roman picture which was rejected, and underneath hung the rosary of the monk. That was enough for the painter. Silently he pressed his hand.
The evening was passed cheerfully in singing with the workmen and children; but ever and again the painter regarded the master, for he could not gaze enough at his beautiful thoughtful face, as well as at his mother's.
_____
Neither Heiner nor the painter are any longer on this earth. The painter attained some excellence in the world, and his end was peaceful. And they both met often. As often as the painter came into Black Forest, he put up at the Hubers, amongst whom only old Frau Huber was missing. Many a piece out of the godfather's Bible did the painter extract, which now stand in the author's library, and with which he is edified. And in his room also hangs the picture of the Crucifix, and the mountains of the Black Forest, and as often as the author sees it (and he sees it daily), he thinks of the dear beautiful house with its mountains, and of the painter. He related this story to the author once when he too had thought about becoming great in his time, and the names only are altered. More than once since, both in company and solitude, has the author thought of Mistress Huber, the godfather in the Grindbach Valley, and of Heinerle of Lindelbronn.
The End.
Proofread by LNL, Oct. 2023